Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.

If I have made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent.

If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought.

If I am anything, which I highly doubt, I have made myself so by hard work.

The Christian ministry is the worst of all trades, but the best of all professions.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.